


Coming Home

by Grin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-05 23:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15181700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grin/pseuds/Grin
Summary: Lucifer's past is catching up to him, and Sam wants to help him outrun it.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet (for me).

"That is not how you take out a banshee," Dean says between gulped breaths as they run. Despite the exertion, he looks pale.

"It worked," Lucifer replies in a clipped tone.

They take a sharp turn and break through the nearest bolted door, Lucifer almost ripping it off its hinges, and Sam smears a quick sigil across the back of it once it's jammed, lopsided, back in its frame.

While Sam drags himself to the opposite wall to draw the sigil's pair, Castiel volunteers to scout and he goes another door in to see where they are. Lucifer takes up the position of lookout without comment and wedges his long body into the open doorway, feet and head at opposite corners, to bar it until Cas gives the all clear. He watches whatever's happening in the next room with his arms crossed and when he's satisfied that they're safe, or when he's bored, he looks back at the brothers, who have dropped to the ground still huffing air like they might not get another chance. The dagger Dean was holding hits the floor, and Sam makes a mental note of where it is. They'll need it if the banshee shows, and it's also made of solid gold.

"You," Dean says to Lucifer with a pointed finger that he can barely hold up, then refills his lungs and releases it all in one breath, "can't do shit like that without friggin' tellin' someone first, are you friggin' crazy?" Sam's not sure he caught all that, but Lucifer looks like he gets the gist.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," Lucifer says, but he's not as amused as he should be. He's sensitive about them seeing him outside of his vessel, and though all they did see was a light so bright that Sam is still blinking spots out of his vision, Dean is treading on a sore subject.

"You sure you killed it?" Dean asks. He's looking out the cracks where the door doesn't meet the frame, so he misses the stony look Lucifer hits him with.

"It melted," Sam says.

"Yeah, but banshees don't melt. They usually--" His hands ricochet off each other but the sound he makes with the back of his teeth is more of a squelch than whatever he was trying for. "And, anyway, we're not stains on the pavement, so that's proof that the survival rate is at least two."

"You two are always an exception." Lucifer says it like he wishes it weren't so while he looks into the other room. "Castiel, nothing's getting in. Come get your headache before I deal with him." Dean grunts at that and gets up like he has a comeback, before he falls back against the wall and scoffs.

He and Lucifer switch places when Cas walks in. Lucifer scoots a wad of shiny crumpled plastic, hopefully a food wrapper, out of the way with the toe of his boot and takes Dean's spot next to Sam. They should leave if people are using this place often enough to litter, but Sam's not going anywhere. He's earned a breather. Lucifer looks less enthused about sitting on the trash-strewn floor.

"Admit you missed this," Sam says with a grin that might be an admission of his own.

"Heaven has a way of making me miss being anywhere else," Lucifer says with his arms rested on his knees and his fingers twisting in his hands. He can be so still that the world could tremble without moving him, and then he frets like this.

"You were up there a while," Sam says. A few days short of a month, or however fast time moves in Heaven, but he doesn't press. Lucifer stops fidgeting.

"It's been a while," Lucifer says and doesn't look at him. Sam wants him to, but he still doesn't turn. He doesn't move.

"What'd they do?" Sam asks. They're Lucifer's family, and though they've earned it several times over, this shouldn't be the first place his mind goes. Except, since he's been back, he's been different, like he hasn't been for years. "You're not, hurt? They didn't--" Lucifer snorts and Sam smiles.

"They're figuring out where to put me."

"And?"

"And," Lucifer shrugs, "they didn't need my input, so they thought I'd do more good here." He can't keep a straight face on the last part, and his grin's a little wicked.

"Smiting banshees," Sam says, triumphant. "And giving Dean an aneurism." That one is more judgmental.

"He does it to himself. He's like a top, just wind him up and watch him go." They watch Dean talk animatedly with Cas, but too low for Sam to hear. Lucifer seems to be following the conversation, but Sam's more interested in what he's thinking than what they're saying.

"You surprised him," Sam says.

"I shouldn't have killed it." Sam pulls back, like the words will make more sense from a different angle. Lucifer doesn't have crises of conscience.

"One of us would have," Sam says and his brows furrow. Lucifer's eyes flicker there. "You saved us some time and stitches." He saved lives, too, though Sam knows better than to say it like it should mean much to him.

"I shouldn't have done it the way I did," he clarifies and rubs his thumbs together.

"Yeah, I thought banshees were more--" Sam snaps his fingers and Lucifer's lips twitch. He stretches out his hand a few times. He forgot about the cut he made to draw the sigils.

Lucifer grabs his hand, taking off the scrap of cloth he'd wrapped around it, and runs a finger against his palm, over the wound, sealing it shut. His skin is cold but his grace is as warm as breath.

"I missed you," he says. It's when he's most human that Sam sees how he's not. Lucifer works too hard for his humanity. It didn't come easy.

Sam smiles and looks away. It's harder for him, sometimes.

"Alright, nobody's blood's boiling? Everybody's eardrums intact? Luce the usual amount of crazy?" Dean asks and it's a complete coincidence that it came when it did. Lucifer rolls his eyes upward and watches the ceiling while he gathers his patience. Sam snags the dagger off the ground before Dean can leave it behind.

They go out the other end of the building from where they entered and the place they found looks like it was a laundromat, when all the washers and dryers were still in place. It's been mid-remodel for a while now, based on the empty industrial buckets filled with beer cans and a smell that's a mix of new paint and mold. Dean is in the lead, refusing to leave taking point to the invincible members of their team, and he sticks his nose behind the plastic sheets hanging over the glass front of the room. There must be no one out there, because he unlocks the door and signals them to follow without drawing his gun when he goes outside.

"We need to go back and check. It might have decided we weren't worth the trouble and looked for something easier," Dean says as they walk down the empty alley.

"I'm starting to feel insulted," Lucifer says from behind Sam.

"Good. Two birds, one golden dagger," Deans says, then slaps at himself before whipping around to find Sam holding it up. "Told you we should have got the sheath."

"It was gold, too, Dean. You don't think that would have drawn attention?" Sam asks.

"We could have used it." He brings up his hands like he's dual-wielding knives.

"Maybe you're right," Lucifer says, and they all glance at him, "The banshee had to know it could get a better meal than you."

Dean's gun is flashing out of the holster before anyone can react. Dean's name is out of Sam's mouth and his gun is in his hand before he sees where Dean's aiming. Ahead of them on the street, someone's there who wasn't a second ago. He's dressed in an immaculate suit.

Castiel turns to look at Lucifer, so Sam does the same while keeping an eye on the strange angel. The archangel gives a little wave and a wide, fake smile. In his periphery, the angel disappears, and Lucifer gives the empty air the finger.

"What was that?" Sam asks Lucifer. His body hasn't accepted that it's out of danger. He's still breathing heavily and he can't get his fingers free from the gun.

"A reminder," Lucifer says. Sam lowers his gun and stares off towards where the angel was, trying to see if this is where everything goes wrong.

 

 

 

 

"They could decide that executing me is their best option," Lucifer says and checks the tag of his shirt before pulling it on. Sam hides his panic with another inspection of his gun that ends with an unnecessary oiling. Unnecessary for the weapon's function, but it gives his nerves something to chew on.

Lucifer has been with them for years without Heaven being the wiser, but they all knew it was borrowed time. After God and Amara left a few months ago, Lucifer disappeared with his brothers and sisters without a word, and Sam came to terms with a part of himself. He has formed habits that keep him running, his entire world running, like this routine maintenance keeps his gun in working order. He relies on what he has to be there when he needs it, without giving it a thought, because that's how it's been, always. That's how it has to be. He thinks of reaching for his gun and finding all that his life depends on is an empty holster and he freezes. He takes it apart and starts over.

"They haven't locked you up. And you turned yourself over to them. That's worth some sort of clemency," Sam says as he runs the polishing rag over gleaming metal. He checks the barrel, rubs off the thumb print. "Why wouldn't they just put you back in the Cage, if it came down to it?"

"Michael's sealed it," Lucifer says. Michael's in the Cage, so Sam's not sure how that works, but he doesn't pursue it.

"Well, they can't kill an archangel, can they?"

"They'd be only too happy to make an exception. Their law isn't from any book you've studied, Sam--except maybe Genesis. God did give Adam and Eve the original death sentence. It's been pretty popular since then," Lucifer says, always observing Sam's reactions instead of coming up with his own, like he was looking for cues. "If you're asking for the how, well, my blade was forged in Heaven. I'm sure they have something lying around that would do the job in a pinch."

"Will they?" Sam asks, and Lucifer knows what he means. He throws the gun beside him on the motel bed. The work isn't helping like it usually does. Lucifer doesn't think about the question as long as he wants him to.

"We both know how it goes if I fight this. I'd prefer not to go there again." He raises his brows, and Sam's needled by the insinuation that he wants him to. He looks down at the rag he's wringing in an attempt to keep his thoughts in line.

"When will you know?" Sam asks. He scrubs his hands, fastidious about cleaning oil from the creases in his knuckles, his palms. The bed dips next to him, and Sam looks up to see Lucifer looking down the barrel of the gun. His muscles tense, but before he can snatch it away, Lucifer puts it down and slides it behind him. It isn't loaded, and it wouldn't have hurt him if it was, but he has habits.

"Whenever they get around to it," he says and Sam watches him toe on his boots and kick the backs against the bedframe before lacing them up. "Looks like your law does have something in common."

Lucifer is brilliant beyond human reckoning, but he's never grasped how time affects Sam. He has smoothed his fingers over each of his wrinkles, but he doesn't see how the seconds and minutes and hours and days weigh heavier on his mind than his body. A part of Sam has always been and will always be waiting, watching, counting, but not all of him. That part of him is Lucifer's.

"But right now, there's a pack of werewolves terrorizing the breadbasket. Do you think they would want to be saved by Sam Winchester or me?" Lucifer asks and presses his lips to a laugh line at the corner of his mouth. Maybe he's learning to watch and wait. Sam smiles and tucks his gun into its holster.

"I don't respond to threats. But I am going," he says and walks out of their room. His bootsteps beat out a military tattoo down the hallway with Lucifer's in counterpoint close behind.

"It's the humane thing to do," he says. Sam doesn't have to turn to see his self-satisfied smile.

 

 

 

 

"Maybe they'll give you a medal," Sam says as he reads the gravestone of the veteran whose bones he's burning. The fire tries to climb out of the open grave. He takes a stick and shoves it back in and throws the stick in after it.

Lucifer sits on the steps of a priest's tomb without a blasphemous care. It gives Sam a laugh, because there's a statue of an angel sharing Lucifer's space that he catches him giving suspicious looks. He looks away from the statue again, and Sam sees two fires burning back at him, brighter than the first.

"I suggested that," Lucifer says and Sam begins to laugh but the need to know more wins out.

"Yeah? How'd that go over?"

"I think they would let Crowley run Heaven before they would admit I did anything that wasn't wrong," he says and sets his back against the angel's stone robes. "Thousands of years, and nothing's changed." There was a house in Lawrence that Sam had returned to for the first time since he was six months old, expecting to find a home. But it had been just another house, another hunt. Lucifer sounds as disappointed as he had been.

"Maybe they have changed, just not as much as you have," Sam says.

Lucifer's fingers move through his hair as he leans against his arm to look at the sky. Sam hopes he's listening.

"And now they see that you're different. They can't deny it," he continues. Lucifer closes his eyes and smiles.

"Oh, woe upon them if they cross Sam Winchester. They're worried about the wrong guy," Lucifer says. Sam peers at him, but the fire's dim light can't help him decide if he's serious.

"Are you even going to argue for yourself, or just let them decide?" Sam asks. He can be peeved if Lucifer wants to try his hand at stand-up comedy in the middle of a graveyard. "Do you even want--"

A figure steps into the light from the grave, and the crickets overrun the conversation. Sam has his hand on the crowbar in the grass as he tries to focus on the intruder, until his eyes realize that the light is passing through him. They're the intruders. Sam's hand tightens around his weapon.

The ghost stands on the opposite side of the flames from Sam, staring down into the pit. He should have dissipated by now, and his form is wavering like he's thinking of joining the firelight, except his shoulders are set like he's made a decision and all that's keeping him there is his determination to follow through.

"What's Heaven like?" he asks in a hollow voice. His name's Jeoffrey, Sam reminds himself. Jeoffrey Peterson, twenty-one years old. When he looks up, it's at Lucifer, like Sam is as insubstantial as he is.

"I don't know what it's like for you. I've never been inside one of your heavens," Lucifer says candidly. Jeoffrey has his full attention, where the most the living usually get is ignored. The dead are one of the few exceptions to Lucifer's enduring disdain for humanity. He can't divorce himself from his angelic tendencies completely, though Sam never thinks that out loud. "If I had to guess, stuffy. Predictable. Populated with overly cheerful people. Like being stuck inside a Hallmark movie." It doesn't mean he doesn't try.

"Is that where I'm going?" the ghost asks with a starved expression. "Or am I going--" He looks down at the fire eating away at his bones. The fate of his eternal soul hinges on the answer, and he knows it. Lucifer doesn't answer right away, and Sam thinks at first he's being intentionally cruel, but he's studying the specter like he's weighing him. A feather against his soul.

"I know a lot about Hell, kid. I'm the Devil," he says with a smile hovering at the edges of the words. He shrugs like he played a good game, but he's conceding the winning point to the other team. "And no offense, but I don't want you."

With that, Jeoffrey blows away in the wind without a word. Sam unsticks his sweaty palm from the crowbar and wipes his hand on the grass.

"That's what I mean," Sam says with his eyes on the fire. Lucifer watches the stars over head while the angel statue watches over him. They sit without talking until the fire burns low and Dean calls Sam to tell him that the last of the squadron of ghosts has moved on.

 

 

 

 

Sam's washing thick, clear ichor that's pungent as gasoline from his hair. The creatures mimicked beached carcasses on the shore, playing dead until someone was compassionate or curious enough to be caught and dragged back into the water, so he doesn't think the blood is poisonous or the itch beneath his skin is more than lingering horror. He grabs the soap again, anyway, and he'll have Lucifer check him over later to make sure. Lathering himself up, he stares at his bottles of shampoo and conditioner, the single loofah hanging from the shower head. He rinses himself off and cuts the water.

He pads back to his room in a towel. He looks around the door before going in, but it's empty except for an anthology of Russian science fiction on the nightstand that he's been reading and his laptop blinking serenely on the dresser. It's not evident from the rumpled covers that he doesn't sleep alone. Nothing in his closet is unexpected, but he moves a few shirts back and forth on their hangers for variety. All of the clothes are the same style, size, the same deliberately muted, forgettable colors. They are all his. He picks one at random and puts it on.

In his bare feet, he moves through the bunker and he watches it instead of thinking of it as background, like he hasn't in a long time. He walks past Dean's door, which is opened far enough to let light spill out. No one is inside, because Dean has never had to pay an electric bill in his life. He's probably still showering and abusing the hot water like the generator runs on magic--which, true, they still aren't sure that it doesn't. Sam hits the switch and shuts the door.

He strolls through the war room, past coat-draped chairs. Sam's efforts to get a bemused Cas to use the coatrack has given Dean another excuse to leave his clothes everywhere, and now Cas is following his bad example. He pauses to consider the trenchcoat and blue denim sitting side-by-side, then smirks and leaves them there.

He stops at the threshold of the library, rubbing a thumb over a sigil on the archway that he tested and intended to paint over, but it doesn't seem to do anything but be impossible to remove. There are a few books he left on the table during last night's research-a-thon leading up to today's hunt and when he walks over to retrieve them he finds Lucifer standing at a bookshelf, glancing from spine to spine. He's tucked in one of the nooks where he was easy to miss from the doorway. Sam doesn't like that he didn't know that he was there. If Lucifer had been gone, he would still be oblivious. Each time he thinks it, it's more real.

"Have you heard anything?" Sam asks, coming over to him with his armful of books.

"Hm," Lucifer answers without taking his eyes off the shelves. "What am I listening for?"

Lucifer insists he can't hear Sam's thoughts word-for-word, but what he does pick up on is close enough to mind reading to be semantics. Sometimes he pretends he needs clarification, and maybe it's just to reassure Sam, but it mostly annoys him. He bled for that privacy once, carving incantation after incantation from desperation and flesh. He and Lucifer thought the worst of each other then, and when Michael leapt into the Cage and the Apocalypse ground to a halt, they hurtled past it, clawing and screaming like the world was still ending. But they both expected worse from the other than they got. That's why they understand each other as easily as they do. They earned it. Lucifer catches that much, because he turns away from the books.

"You'll know what they've decided when they do. They won't wait around," he says.

"Because you'll let me know, right?" Sam asks as he replaces one of the books on its shelf.

"If I have the chance." He takes a book from Sam and flips through it. "I'm a flight risk. I doubt I'll know until they're sure I can't run."

Sam shelves the last book and leans against the bookcase.

"They can't take you," Sam says to the books, and Lucifer looks up at him, "like that. They can't get into the bunker."

"Mm." Lucifer glances around the library. "I've been trapped in worse. But I'm not going to hide out in here. No, don't give me that look, Sam." Lucifer leans his head back and snaps the book shut. Sam wasn't aware he was giving him any look. "You Winchesters are big on redemption and paying for your sins. Well, here comes Judgment Day."

"Who? Who's judging you? They're all hypocrites, if any of them think they have the right to pass judgment on anyone."

"Dad said He'd drop by," Lucifer says, and the conversation gets a lot more uncomfortable.

"He left."

"He told me before He left. Benefit of being All-Knowing," and the calm way he says it doesn't freak Sam out any less.

"Then did He tell you--?" Sam asks.

"How it's going to go? His favorite part of knowing everything is lording over everyone else how ignorant they are." Lucifer is picking at his nails.

"It will go better with Him there," Sam says and Lucifer gives him a cutting look. "If He's making a point to come back, then He's not going to let them get away with doing whatever they want to you."

"Of course He won't. He can do that Himself," Lucifer says with his voice stripped of inflection. Sam represses a sigh, but he jumps on it anyway. "That's who He is, Sam. He's God. And when You're God, You don't force anyone to do what You want. You give them Heaven for the faithful, and Hell to keep them in line, and they'll beg for the privilege." He puts his hands together in prayer and adopts a cherubic expression. "'Please, God. I'll be good, just don't send my eternal soul to damnation.' Little carrot, big stick."

"You're being dramatic," Sam says.

"Not about that. I never wanted to be in Heaven more than when I saw it disappear on my way down into Hell." He crosses his arms and leans his shoulder against the bookcase.

"He's not going to do that to you again," Sam says and tries to leave sympathy out of it.

"No, He won't. Because I'll make them kill me first," Lucifer says.

"Lucifer," Sam bites out and grips a shelf when he falls short of reaching for him.

"They won't let me go free just because the Cage lit up the 'no' on its vacancy sign. They gave me a choice once, and if being kept alive means treading in the Lake of Fire or being shut up in Heaven's jail until the end of days, then I'll take the other option," he says with a defiant glare that dares Sam to argue, but he is stone. Lucifer is talking like he's backed into a corner, and all Sam can think is that there's nothing here that reminds him of him. He's standing right there, and when they take him it will be like he never existed. He turns away from Lucifer, breathing deeply to loosen the despair lodged in his throat. Lucifer has given himself up for lost, and he faced Michael without flinching when, he told Sam later, he had expected to die. Sam can stop fooling himself that they will make it through this.

Lucifer's looking at him. He's going to say something fatalistic, that whatever happens will happen. Sam was fine without him before, he will be again. He doesn't want to hear it.

"Were you looking for something?" Sam asks as he runs a hand along the books.

"They found me, but I was free from them here for years," Lucifer says. "It felt like a lot longer. Like forever, sometimes." He shrugs and raises a brow as Sam starts to fall apart.

"It isn't over," Sam hisses and pushes against the books when he tries to stand straight.

"I say it is," he says. "I've accepted it. You said I've changed--and that's part of it, isn't it?" It isn't a question, but he needs Sam to answer him, for both of them. Sam wants to bite off his own tongue.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," he admits. Lucifer slowly nods until Sam bows his head and looks back at him. Neither of them steps closer, wary of finding that the distance between them is further than it looks.

"I never gave my mortality much thought," he says slowly like he's thinking of it now. "But this isn't new to you. You know that this could be it." Death is a part of being human, especially if he is Sam Winchester. He resents his humanity a little for letting Lucifer turn it against him.

"But _you_ were supposed to stay," Sam accuses him and he lets it ring between them. It can echo here after he's gone. Lucifer stands against it, brow and chin lowered, stubborn to his last shred of grace.

Sam can touch him. He knows he can make him yield with kindness when he expects to lock horns. He can accept that he can't change this, and take hold of what he has left with both hands.

But he walks out of the library. Before he's out the door, he looks back to see if he's still there. Lucifer meets his eyes until he's hidden from sight.

Dean is playing "Come And Get Your Love" loudly enough that Sam hears it in the hallway, so that everyone in the bunker knows that dinner's ready. Sam comes and eats and washes his single dish in the sink. After that night, he starts making excuses to leave the room whenever Lucifer walks in.

 

 

 

 

Sam slams back against a tree and tries to keep his legs from folding. If what's been following him the past ten minutes is still out there, it is perfectly camouflaged among the criss-crossing undergrowth and intersecting tree branches.

There was a nest of these things in a condemned house on the edge of the woods and, from the reports of desiccated bodies, a little too close to the nearby town for comfort. This hunt was the first opportunity Sam's had to be on his own in a while, and he leapt at it. But only after doing his due diligence. He devoured the online leads, and from what he gleaned, the creatures were nocturnal and outside of their natural habitat, and when he saw the nest up close, he felt his conscience twinge at how easy it would be. He still razed it to ash. But he missed one. And it's pissed.

It's dark, and he's let himself be chased into the woods, but he doesn't have a plan. His lungs protest each gasp of air as he tries to get as close as he can to seeing in every direction at once.

He needs to get a fire started, and he has a half-formed idea of finding a fallen branch he can use as a torch and pulling out his lighter before he sees it moving in the orange flame. It's plunging towards him, tall high-jointed legs scuttling around its pendulous body with a noise like trees bending in a high wind.

Sam takes off like a shot, dodging trees by pure instinct as he goes too fast to see. He can't hear it over his own feet churning up the ground, but when he swerves to miss a trunk, a spindly leg lodges in it like an arrow. He takes a gamble and looks back, and it's already moving again, leaving part of its leg in the tree and still close enough behind him that he wishes he hadn't looked.

He knows why they call them "striders".

His stamina gives out before the woods do. One second he's running, and the next his calf spasms and instead of taking his weight it spills him across the ground. Rolling to his back, he throws the lighter that is still clutched in his sweaty hand and watches as the flame sails through the air. The others had gone up like kindling, but the lighter bounces off its body and disappears between its legs mid-stride.

He drags himself backwards, but his body's given out, and it's on him. He can see the holes on its moss-covered body, clustered like spiders' eyes, and he's seen that emptiness before, hurdling towards him in his last moments.

"This isn't happening," Sam swears and blots it out of his mind as he draws his gun. It isn't any use against walking deadwood, but it's of less use if he leaves it in its holster while he lets the beast have him. Taking aim's easy when it's a second away and, saying a little prayer to the only one listening, he plugs three more holes in its body. The grouping's clean and neat.

He drops his arm and lies back. That's all he can manage. He waits for it to stick him with a thorny leg, for the paralyzing venom that honestly won't make much of a difference to muscles that already feel like soup to start circulating. He wonders what it will feel like to have his insides sucked out, though once his organs start liquefying, he doubts he'll still be alive to notice. He shouldn't have done so much research.

An interminable time later, he's roused from an exhausted stupor by his own signs of life. His breathing's slowed, and it's the loudest sound he hears. Even if he's out of danger, he still shouldn't take the time he does to squint through the dark for a better picture of what happened. It takes him a minute before he decides that lump of shadow huddled on the ground is familiar, and unmoving. He lets his head fall back on the ground before he grits his teeth and hefts himself into a sitting position. A few minutes later, he's dragging his feet towards the body. It could just be stunned. He shouldn't have thrown his lighter. The only way he's going to feel good about leaving it is if there's none of it left.

As he gets closer, he can see it better than he should. A sickly orange haze clings to it. Maybe the flame did catch, but its spread was somehow delayed.

He sees that the light is from a fire, but the fire's inside of it, smoldering out of the bullet holes he'd made in its woody hide. He checks his gun, but he didn't pack the incendiary rounds. He didn't expect to need them. They also weren't the right caliber, but spontaneous combustion made as much sense.

When he checks the chamber, his callouses catch on the casing. It's too dark to see what's there, but his fingertips explore what feels like carvings along the side of the barrel.

The top of the creature's dried, hollowed body caves in and the fire climbs out. The marks on his gun are writing, but he can't see more than that. He stands by the fire until it eats itself out of a home and gutters and dies on the green forest floor.

Now that he has all the time he needs, the wood spits him out near where he came in after just a few minutes of walking. He falls into the front seat of the Impala and examines his gun in the cab light.

He's been around it enough to recognize enochian. What he didn't know is that he can tell it's Lucifer's writing. He slumps back in his seat, brushing his fingers against the forms. He could make more sense of it if it were braille. The first two notes are the beginning of a blessing, but the rest may not even be translatable as far as he knows.

He holsters it and takes his phone from his pocket. It's back in service, and he has at least one missed message and text from everyone in the bunker. He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. He almost died, again. But what he regrets more is that he had faced death alone.

Dialing Dean's cell, he puts the car in drive and points it back home.

 

 

 

 

Lucifer continues to dry the cup in his hands like Sam isn't staring daggers at him. Though he doesn't look too threatening with his hands pruning wrist-deep in soapy water.

"You could have told me," Sam grumbles.

"Oh, so we weren't not talking?" Lucifer asks with an idle glance at him and back to the cup as he reaches behind his shoulder and puts it in the cabinet.

"What if I hadn't used it?" he asks without even pretending to acknowledge the comment.

"I know you don't like it when I touch your stuff. But let's take it a step further, and you tell me why you went on your own?" Sam looks at him as he leans back with his hands on the counter. He isn't going anywhere now that he's gotten him alone.

"It was an easy hunt," Sam grouses and uses his frustration to scrub a stubborn bit of dinner off a pan. This conversation isn't going the pace he wants it to. Lucifer dove right into the deep end.

"Easy," Lucifer murmurs and starts running the towel over another glass. "You make everything difficult."

"I know," he admits and accidentally sloshes water out of the sink. He sighs. "Could you hand me that?" He moves the clean pan to be washed while he waits for a towel. Lucifer grabs his arm.

"You know I don't have my wings," his voice grinds out but his grip is not tight enough for the words.

"I know, Lucifer," Sam says.

"But you prayed to me." He moves closer instead of pulling Sam to him. "And I had to wait here while I thought you were dying. I didn't even know where to find you if I could."

"Dean knew--"

"A fat lot of good that did us when a car can only go a few hundred miles an hour. I can't feel you, Sam," Lucifer says and lays a hand on his ribs. "And I won't start pushing now. But if you're not going to trust me to be there, or to even know where you are, then I will fucking key wards in the Impala's paint job if I have to." Any intense emotion always looks like anger on Lucifer's face, but when he's angry, he never gets this close. Sam feels warmer even though his touch stays cold.

"I trust you," Sam says, and the words are embarrassingly thick. He clears his throat. "But you talk like you're already gone."

"This is how you get used to the idea? You punish me?" Sam scoffs and slaps his cleaning rag around the neck of the faucet instead of throwing it in Lucifer's face.

"No. I left because you want me to accept it, but I won't," he says. "And since when do you resign yourself to anything, anyway? It's like you want them to kill you, so they can prove you right. But they won't, Lucifer. They're not good or holy, but they can't do that and still call themselves angels." Lucifer looks like he tries. He tries for a moment to see from Sam's point of view the just universe that he lives in.

"I can't," Lucifer says. "I can't change Heaven, Sam. I never could."

Sam puts his hands on Lucifer's waist and water soaks into the shirt he's wearing, which belongs to Sam. This steadies him, even when it's Lucifer who's driving him crazy.

"Don't do that to me again," Lucifer says.

"Okay. I won't. I shouldn't have left without backup--it was the wrong way to handle things." Sam can admit it for the both of them. "But I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you." Lucifer concedes with a huff, and Sam presses his lips to his jaw before breathing against his ear. "So what did you do to my gun?"

"What Samuel did to the Colt," he says and Sam stares at him. "Except, second being in existence, old cadger from the 1800's--" Lucifer moves his hands like a balance. "I made some improvements."

"You could have made us a whole arsenal of Colts, anytime you wanted?" Sam asks, still stunned.

"Sure. I'd have to think up another name for them. But who can't be killed by the Colt?" he asks with mock offense. "I'm still more powerful than a gun." Sam indulges his pride and kisses him, because he knows the gun's supposed to be some consolation prize for when Lucifer's no longer here, but he doesn't want to argue anymore. He's already wasted enough time.

"I'd rather have you," Sam says simply. Lucifer gives him a smug smile and they kiss.

Sam crowds Lucifer against the counter, and he pulls himself on top of it to hook his calves behind Sam's thighs. He runs his hands beneath his shirt, molding his hands to his skin, and the contact makes him giddy. Lucifer always affects him like this. He blames how Lucifer touches him like he's been holding himself back until he knows he can get away with cupping his neck, and running his hands down his chest, and parting the buttons of his shirt like water. Or the look he gets like Lucifer can't figure out what he'll do next, but he wants to find out. Sam wants to be there with him, in this moment. He kisses him and feels him against him and anchors them both with his hands on Lucifer's hips. And he thinks about all he stands to lose.

"I would say yes, if you asked me," Sam murmurs in one frantic breath. He freezes when he hears glass shattering against the tile. He puts his hands against the counter and leans back, and Lucifer is stunned and a little ruffled.

"No," he says, and pauses like he doesn't know what else to add. The glass cup reappears, whole, in his hand. He sets it in the dish drainer.

"Then--make it so you can find me," he tries again, holding on to the hand at his waist, and Lucifer takes a trembling breath.

"You're sure?" Lucifer asks him, even though Sam can tell he wants this, badly enough that he's denied himself from asking for it for this long.

"Yes," he laughs and pulls Lucifer to him again as the angel traces his fingers across his ribs.

"Aw fuck." They turn to see Dean standing in the doorway in his robe. "You're supposed to clean the dishes, not throw them around while you're having sex in my kitchen."

"And what did I see you and Castiel doing the other morning?" Lucifer asks and Sam turns away from both of them, embarrassed.

"It's my kitchen," Dean emphasizes, refusing to back down. He angrily shoves a bag of popcorn in the microwave and starts it. "Move it somewhere else, or if you're not out by the time this is done, someone's getting evicted." He stalks out of the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

They're in bed, and Sam smiles while he touches his ribs like he can feel the changes to the wards there. Lucifer's beside him, but he can feel where he is with his eyes closed, without touching him. It's a condition he tacked on at the last moment that Lucifer obliged anyway. It reassures him that he has this to share with him. He rolls towards Lucifer, who squeezes an arm around his shoulders, and he falls asleep.

He wakes up and turns on the bedside lamp and Lucifer is spasming, his body jerking against him, and his head is clutched in his hands.

"Lucifer," Sam yells and grabs him and hopes he's not about to get flung into a wall. He repeats his name as Lucifer drags his fingers down his face, leaving white tracks, but his expression is screwed tight in pain. His teeth are gritted, and he's knocking his head back against the pillows. He's been silent, but he's making a noise now like his vocal cords are rearranging themselves and it's reaching the threshold of popping lightbulbs and eardrums. Sam puts a shielding arm between him and the headboard that's not helping anything, but he can't think of what else to do. Lucifer said his brothers and sisters would kill him, but Sam is human and so stupid and he didn't think that they are angels, of course they don't even need to be here to do it. Sam was so sure that the bunker would save him, but his complacency has killed him instead.

"No," Sam groans, grabbing at Lucifer, but he keeps slipping out of his grip. It's when Lucifer's fit subsides and he pulls him all the way into his arms that he realizes he's still murmuring, and he stops. He can't remember what he said.

Lucifer's dead. He has to be, he's so cold. But his head lolls into the crook of his arm and he raises a hand to his shoulder, and Sam sags in relief.

"What?" he asks when his thoughts clear enough for him to hear that Lucifer's talking.

"You didn't hear that?" Lucifer rasps, and he's blinking clear blue eyes up at Sam. He looks like he's woken up from a bad dream that he doesn't remember. Or that he remembers enough to cherish waking that much more.

"No. What was it?"

"It was the Host." Lucifer pauses. "I can hear them. They're louder than I remember." He's rubbing an ear between his forefinger and thumb.

"What did they say?" Sam asks with quiet despair.

He gets to see Lucifer as he has to compose himself. It's so rare, that he waits and watches him. The line of his mouth wavers and his eyes dart away and back, until he turns his head and presses his lips against the nearest part of Sam he can reach, and this grounds him.

"Welcome home," he says, and Sam can't catch his breath. It's relief, and it's replaced all the air in the room. Sam kisses him and then he can't stop himself and Lucifer grins. "So, you were right." Sam laughs, though it's a little wild. It doesn't matter that he was right. He would have gladly been wrong, if it had still turned out like this.

Their kissing slows and deepens, and the thought eventually comes that this is still goodbye. Lucifer has been absent from Heaven for long enough. He deserves to go home. At least Sam can have this. Lucifer is alive, and Sam will know where he is, wherever he goes, and he can use these last hours to prepare to let go.

Sam opens his mouth to tell him all of this, but after a few seconds, nothing comes out, and he's just staring at him. He runs his thumb back and forth along Lucifer's jaw with the hand he has cupping the side of his neck.

"I'm waiting for you to say it," Lucifer says. Sam had wanted more time.

"I'm glad that they--" he starts, but Lucifer presses his fingers against his lips.

"The other thing," he says. It takes Sam a minute before he understands.

"I love you," is what slips out. It's not the first time he's said it, but he doesn't mean it any less.

"Yeah, fine, I love you. I'm still waiting," Lucifer says with a smirk. Sam grins like the sun's rising.

"Welcome home," he says.

"It's good to be home." Sam laughs breathlessly and Lucifer kisses him.


End file.
